Jimzu

For the moshav, see Gimzo.

Jimzu
Jimzu
Arabic	جمزو
Name meaning	Sycamore
Also spelled	Gimzo
Subdistrict	Ramle
Coordinates
Palestine grid	145/148
Population	1,510 (1945)
Area	9,681 dunams
Date of depopulation	10 July 1948
Cause(s) of depopulation	Military assault by Yishuv forces
Current localities	Moshav Gimzo

Jimzu (Arabic: جمزو‎‎), also known as Gimzo (meaning "sycamore plantation"), was a Palestinian village, located three miles southeast of Lydda. Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan of Mandatory Palestine, Jimzu was to form part of the proposed Arab state. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the village was depopulated in a two-day assault by Israeli forces.

Under the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Jimzu's lands fell under the de facto governance of the newly created state of Israel. A year later, moshav Gimzo was established at the site of the former village and is now populated by 700 Israeli Jewish residents.

History

Jimzu is identified with the ancient Gimzo, a city mentioned in the Bible as being in the plain of Judah whose villages were seized by the Philistines (as recorded in the 2 Chronicles 28:18). The town was home to the Tannaic sage Nahum of Gimzo.

Ottoman era

Jimzu, along with the whole of Palestine, came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire after it defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516. The village was incorporated into the Ottoman nahiya (subdistrict) of Ramla (al-Khalīl) under the Liwa of Gaza ("District of Gaza"). In 1596, it is recorded that the village of Jimzu had a population of 154, and that it paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley and fruits, as well as goats and beehives.

Biblical scholar Edward Robinson passed through the village in 1838, and reported it to be "rather large", situated on an eminence, "to make quite a show at a distance". He also noted that the village had many subterranean magazines for storing grain.

An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted 83 houses and a population of 325 in Dschimzu, though the population count included men only.

In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Jimzu as a village built of adobe bricks and situated on the side of a low hill, surrounded by cactus hedges and olive trees.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jemzu had a population of 897, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 1,081, still all Muslims, in a total of 268 houses.

The villagers of Jimzu maintained a mosque. An elementary school was established in the village in 1920, and by the mid-1940s it had 175 students.

Most villagers worked in agriculture. In 1945 the population was 1,510, all Muslims, while the total land area was 9,681 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, a total of 77 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas, while 5,577 dunums were allocated to cereals. 1,605 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, of which 1,400 dunums was for olives, while 50 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.

1948 war

Jizmu was occupied by the Yiftach Brigade of the Haganah on July 10, 1948, in the first phase of Operation Dani.

According to Benny Morris:

"The intention, from the first, was to depopulate [Jimzu and surrounding villages]. On 10 July, Yiftah Brigade HQ informed Dani HQ: Our forces are clearing the 'Innaba-Jimzu-Daniyal area and are torching everything that can be burned.'"

The following day (11 July) Yiftach informed Dani Headquarters, that its forces had conquered Jimzu and Daniyal and were "busy clearing the villages and blowing up the houses [´oskot betihur hakfarim u´fitzutz habatim]" All of Jimzu's inhabitants left as a result of the assault by Israeli forces. Its 434 homes were demolished on September 13, 1948.

The settlement of Gimzo was established on village land in 1950. Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi described the remains of Jimzu in 1992: "All that remains of the houses are stones, strewn over the site, and some crumbled walls. The site is overgrown with shrubs and thorny plants. Other kind of vegetation also grow on village land, including Christ´s-thorn trees, foxtail, cactuses, and some abandoned olive trees."

See also

• List of Arab towns and villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict

External links

• Welcome to Jimzu
• Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14: IAA, Wikimedia commons
• Carob, Fennel, and the Red Soil of Gimzo: Crafting Palestinian Identity